HARP Fantasy is an epic fantasy role-playing game system powered by the High Adventure Role Playing (HARP) mechanics from Iron Crown Enterprises. Although HARP is a d100 system, it is quite unlike the typical d100 system. Instead of a roll-under mechanic whereas your skill defines the target number, it is more like what d20 OGL would look like if you used d100 instead of a d20. For example, Character Stats area a value that translates into a bonus, as opposed to a value that is added to another value to create a base skill value. One of the biggest changes, however, from most d100 systems is that HARP is a roll-over system; not a roll-under system.

The HA in HARP means High Adventure. That’s a pretty big tag to carry as High Adventure signifies great, heroic deeds, plenty of action, and likely memorable adventures. The interesting thing is, when you look at the mechanics, they embrace the heroic style of high adventure in a sense of “go big or don’t go at all”. Characters are designed with certain stats significant enough to perform these heroic deeds. All other stats are not meant for heroic deeds, but they can be useful for utility purposes. Thus, your PC is designed to do amazing things and his or her stats will aid you in your d100 rolls. Just make sure you are thinking strategically; when it’s “all or nothing” (fail or success, no grey areas), you better have the right stats or tools. But when you do, amazing feats of role-playing can occur. To me, that sounds like High Adventure.

Getting back to the idea of d20 OGL using d100, HARP takes the fantasy genre and adds a level of granularity common to d100 systems. You have a greater range of penalties and bonuses to differentiate between races, cultures, and professions (+1/+2 versus +5/+10/+15/+20) and a larger collection of skills with baseline values calculated from your main stats. There are many rules-medium systems that go with a much-abridged list of skills, but HARP Fantasy sticks to a larger list of skills common to d100 systems. One disadvantage of fewer skills is that characters often feel alike from one to another at higher levels. “Oh, all five PCs have the exact same 10 Skills and only one that the others don’t have.” That type of occurrence is much more rare when you have more skills to choose from, hopefully without suffering from skill bloating (i.e. having way too many skills in a game system). Characters have unique abilities because there are simply more skills to choose from and more ways to create the unique character concept.

Magic in HARP Fantasy is quite unlike d20 OGL. In fact, it’s more like a rules-medium or d100 system whereas you have fewer spells to choose from, but those spells are scaleable (unlike d20 where you have to acquire 5 different Healing spells as you progress in rank). Although it’s a personal preference, I like scaleable magic that doesn’t require you to acquire the same spells, just at different levels, over and over again.

Those are really the major aspects of HARP Fantasy that set it apart from other gaming systems. Like most fantasy gaming systems, it covers a host of common aspects including races, professions, combat, equipment, poisons, treasure, monsters, and gamemastering. It’s all there though, making it an all-in-one core rulebook.

I expected this to work flawlessly, the combat tool did not work on the stock monsters. That was my biggest frustration. Additionally, when creating a character I expected to be able to randomly generate stats with the RMFRP set. Lastly, the software is designed to run on a localhost using a web interface. Which is great provided you have the ability to connect to a router so that your players can do something with the software. In a lot places there were no buttons to return to the main module, so I had to use the back button far too frequently for my tastes.

The character sheet for printing is awful, as well, I'd expect that it would render in a very nice sheet that we could print and take to the table. I expected the ability to enter my own data as well.Purchasing the data packs is the route they decided to take, but if I don't have the extra money and I want to invest my time into entering the data myself, I expect to be able to do that. Overall its a decent attempt, but I am happy it didn't cost me anything to find out this wasn't really production ready.

Folkways is actually two books in one. The first half of the book is the Folkways portion – a reference guide designed for fleshing out a setting. The second half of the book is supplemental material for HARP Fantasy, providing new races, professions, and training packages that have more meaning within HARP Fantasy than they do otherwise. I make this last comment because the Folkways half of the book is completely system-agnostic and applies to any setting, any genre, any game system. I’m going to discuss each half of the book separately.

There are many guides available for building a unique setting for your game. There are also hundreds of settings available across multiple genres and game systems. Most of those settings provide enough information to get your game going, make it interesting, and provide enough for the PCs to explore. Often times, there’s no need to delve too deep into the setting by fleshing out the details of each culture (or at least each main culture) within that setting. The keyword to take away from this is “culture”. This is not a discussion of species, race, or ethnicity (although it could be a combination of the three), it is literally fully fleshing out the nuances of what makes a culture what it is. This is where the Folkways material comes into play.

Folkways is a guide for detailing these deep elements of your culture by using the twenty questions method. Each question details a “way” (or detailed element) regarding the culture. The twenty ways include environment, family, marriage, lifespan, rank, authority, and a number of others to reach twenty. I’m not going to detail this information as it would literally spoil the IP developed within the book. In other words, you need to buy it in order to find out what this stuff really means. By answering each question, you build the detailed elements that makes a culture, a culture. This creates a truly three-dimensional setting where many questions can be answered.

Granted, this is really only useful if you are spending a lot of time within a given culture and plan on developing the character’s “career” while surrounded by that culture. Otherwise you could be providing more detail than is truly necessary. But if you do want to flesh out your setting further to create an actual culture, then this guide leads the way. Oh, and it’s completely generic, with not a shred of game mechanics, and thus can be used for every RPG.

The second half of the book is supplemental material for HARP Fantasy. Really it’s just material that adds more options to your HARP Fantasy games. I’m not really sure why this material was added to the reference portion of the book, but I’m thinking it has to do with connecting the Folkways content with the heart of HARP Fantasy. It also could have been done to make the book more valuable, by presenting in-game content, but either way it helps to connect the Folkways with HARP Fantasy.

I will note that even the HARP Fantasy content is generally mechanics-light and can easily be translated into other game systems. In all honesty, there’s no reason why you couldn’t use this entire book with another game system. Not that I’m trying to say it should be used outside of HARP, I’m just saying that it has potential value outside of HARP. As for the Folkways, it has value everywhere!

I've only just started using this as a GM, although I have been a player in a campaign where the GM uses it for a while now.

I like it. I found it pretty easy to learn and use, although better documentation would be nice. The YouTube videos are helpful, but not really comprehensive enough.

Keeping track of all the things going on in a RoleMaster combat can involve a lot of bookkeeping, and this program does an excellent job of that, and this is especially helpful in a large combat - the last one being 5 PCs and 8 monsters - it made the combat flow a lot more smoothly.

A good collection of the Classic Rolemaster Spell lists. Rolemaster is one of if not the best system out there. GM's have the option to make the system as gritty and complex as they wish, as well as making it as fast and flud as they wish.

HARP Fantasy Loot is more than just lists of treasure, it has some good world building advice folded in and a very complete set of magic item creation rules. It should be indispensable for a HARP GM and those of others systems can probably find a goodly amount of material as well but obviously the rule heavy parts would be of much less use.

HARP Fantasy Loot by Jonathan Cassie and published by Iron Crown Enterprises presents rules and advice for loot and treasure for the High Adventure Role Playing (HARP) system. The layout is clean with sparse but good illustrations.

It begins with a short introduction and then moves into a look at what can be defined as loot beyond the obvious treasures, things such as information, items of sentimental value, trade goods and more are all potential loot. This section provides useful advice and good things to keep in mind for a GM.

Next it moves into Loot in the Wilderness, which discusses both loot placement and what sorts of treasure the common monsters of the HARP are likely to have. Some of this is tied specifically to the HARP view of certain creatures (say hobgoblins) but the general sweep of the discussion is still a good guide to the things that should be considered when placing treasure. Two example ruins show how to weave these creatures linked threads together in a setting that character might wish to explore (and loot). Then, Loot in the Big City, which talks more about cities than loot but is a solid reference section all the same covering types of cities: core and periphery, human and other. But indeed some loot can be found in a variety of city markets, though more through trade than seizure.

We then move onto Fabrication & Materials, this section is intimately tied to the HARP system, detailing the rules of creating magic items in the system. The sorts of materials, plant, animal, mineral and even more unusual things (such as hearts of fire) that can be combined to create magic items, and what they can be applied to and how much magic they provide, is carefully detailed. A nice selection of charts provide the costs to create a wide variety of effects which are paid for the components used to create them, providing the basics of a fascinating if clunky system. It then moves onto specific types of items: Potions define the steps needed to make potions, or other consumables, of two general types which provide many different potential potions. Runes are next, which are the scrolls of the HARP system, and are easy and useful items, there is a subset, Crystal Runes, inscribed on gems which are reusable within certain limits. Crafting Talismans covers charms, fetishes and talismans, which all fill the niche of a basic defense or enhancement item and differ in duration, weeks for charms to permanent talismans. Creating high magic items and intelligent items wraps up the fairly comprehensive fabrication section.

The short Now What? Chapter deals (briefly) with debased currency but mostly with what happens when magic items go wonky with some tables to help out the GM when such happen.

The last third of so of the book is random treasure tables and a general overview on the various kinds of loot that can be found, from coins to cultural artifacts. Then in moves to an adventure favorite sort of loot, magic, with many magic item lists and descriptions of the unusual ones, most of which come with some implied world building and a few of which are jokey or punny, so be warned. But overall a wide selection of interesting items that, while statted for HARP, could be easily adapted to other settings.

The book ends with an index, which is always helpful.

For a GM of HARP, this book is likely to be invaluable. For those who play other systems, there is still a lot of good material here but perhaps not enough to justify its purchase.

Disclosure: I received my copy of this product for free from the publisher for the purpose of this review.

Excellent re editing of an old school classic and my soft back book is well done but two stars knocked because of no hardcover and n discount pdf print combo. Plenty of other rpg publishers will throw in a free pdf when you get a printed book but not Guild Companion they just gouge their fan base

The printed version had to be reconstructed from layout files created by other people, and the result was only compatible with the specifications for softcover format. A hardcover version would have required us to totally redo the layout which is not practical for an older edition product.

Well it works - haven't really had enough games to say it is brilliant, but it does save on all the looking up in tables. The players can still make their rolls which let's face it they really want to do. The highlights pick out characters incapacitated and applies penalties consistently. Multiple encounters can be saved, although you will need to plan a little ahead to get these right by using the groupiings tool.

This module has been floating around since the 1980's. This new edition is the definitive version of EIDOLON. It has more maps, more NPC'S, more adventure scenarios, more information on the noble houses...more of everything. In fact, the author added 100 pages of new content.

While this book is intended for Rolemaster Classic/RMSS, it can be plopped into any campaign world. (With some effort) The attention to detail is staggering. This is one purchase you won't regret.

A great book that was effectively lost for a time until GCP was able to bring it back. Castles & Ruins covers a lot of general ground about the function of castles and fortifications, e.g. the construction and basic day-to-day operation of castles. Some sections are specific to RMSS, such as training packages (26 training packages), and others usable in any version of Rolemaster including spell lists (9 lists) and attack tables (4 tables for different types of siege weapons), but any fantasy game will benefit from the extensive sections on the design, materials, costs (or rental charges for the use of!), labor requirements and availability, and income related to a fortification, as well as the discussion of how to attack and besiege one or the concerns of disease. And adventure seeds, random events during construction or during the day-to-day of feudal rule. Not to mention the variety of traps and other defensive structures, tables for randomly generating ruins and their present contents, etc. It's not just castles and ruins, either. The construction costs can also be used for other types of buildings, and there are lots of little details such as the typical income of different types of grain mills. Really a fantastic reference. About 30 pages are RM-specific and the remaining 151 pages could be used in any system. Those using the book for other games may want to multiply all costs by 10, since Rolemaster uses a silver-based economy unlike the gold-based economy of some other games.

Eidolon, City in the Sky is another sourcebook for the Shadow World setting for Rolemaster. Continuing on with books like Emer Atlas III, it’s a detailed write-up of this epic fantasy setting, covering an array of source material digging down into aspects you often overlook when creating and running a setting. Eidolon and Sel-Kai (the city on the ground), are part of the Emer continent and effectively continue the extensive write-up contained in other Emer books. However, this content is solely focused on that much smaller portion of the continent as opposed to a much larger regional write-up.

I’m going to be honest; I’m not really a fan of epic fantasy. However, the Shadow World books are amazing to me in that they contained such an abundance of detail that you quickly forget they’re designed for use in an epic fantasy setting. There is so much meat throughout the book (regardless of the stat blocks) that you can use it virtually anywhere. You can take the entire setting and port it into a dark fantasy or fantasy horror setting. You can even take probably 90% of the content and place it into a different game system. Eidolon, City in the Sky is an excellent resource for breathing life into your Shadow World games, and it does it without getting bogged down in crunch. There’s a lot of fluff here and the descriptions of what you find throughout the cities are vivid and believable.

When I read these Shadow World books, I always get the sense that the writer knows an awful lot about earth sciences and civilizations. The people are believable, the cities are believable, the surroundings are believable, and the environment is believable. Regardless of the fantasy aspects, you can really picture yourself (or rather your PC) standing in the midst of this city with the hustle and bustle going on around you. It’s this picture that makes these books come alive. Adding to that is a great collection of maps to allow easy navigation throughout and aid the GM in connecting the fluff to the city’s design.

As for the book itself, being a second edition, it appears to offer a lot of value to those who have the first edition. You can clearly see the differences between first edition artwork being reused and new artwork added in (I found the first edition artwork to be rather meh), but otherwise the content flows quite nicely from beginning to end.